For hilltribe people, roads giveth and roads taketh away. While paved roads have brought mountain communities closer to the city allowing the influx of technology, education, and improved medical care, paved roads have also brought the dangers and exploitation of the city closer to the mountain communities. Ever-increasing land restrictions force more and more hilltribe people to abandon the farming as a way of sustaining themselves and the ever-expanding cities beckon these recent ex-farmers with hints and promises of paid work.

But what many hilltribe people do not understand is that like a child riding on his home-made go-kart, the trip downhill is much easier and faster than the one back up. While almost every village has someone who has gone to the city and disappeared, the more common scenario is that villagers do not have the finances or means to make trips back to their village. The lack of telecommunications infrastructure in the mountains serves to sever completely an urban immigrant from his home.

Most tribal villagers are no more prepared for the speed of city life than this go-kart is for descending a steep paved road, and, like the go-kart, life has no brakes. Disconnected from his or her support network, as the wheels of a villager's life come flying off, he or she is left at the mercy of his or her own momentum. The prostitution and human trafficking industries are populated by thousands of tribal people who lost control of their own lives. Even for the lucky ones who regain control and have an option of returning to their villages, many do not want to return home out of shame resulting from the things they have done while living in the city.

Regardless of the personal factors involved, the indisputable fact is that the rural exodus taking place in today's tribal communities is damaging tribal society on a village and cultural level, while not necessarily delivering expected material benefits as compensation.